by Auri Blest
“What do you mean gone? That was a platoon of one hundred fifty IMO soldiers!”
“Affirmative. They’re all dead Director.”
“Are you telling me that the company from both the interior and those stationed around the perimeter of the building are dead?”
“That is correct, Director.”
She grabbed onto the table with such force that had the table not been bolted to the floor, it would have collapsed. I am done playing games with you. You think you know so much? Let’s see how much you know now. “Arm the implant!”
“Director…”
“Arm the implant,” she yelled.
As the Director spoke, she felt something sticky on the floor under her shoe. She stooped down. What is that? Is that blood? She knelt in closer. The chip. That’s why she had been fidgeting with her arm when I walked in.
Dawn had cut out the device that the IMO had implanted in her arm when she was unconscious. It was placed just under the skin and could be used as a tracking device, or if armed, to release poison to kill.
At that moment, the Director heard a whisper in her head, “You kill what you cannot control.”
The Director yelled out in anger and kicked the wall, leaving a black footprint on the barren space. As she marched towards the entrance of the hidden room, she heard a gurgling sound. Her pace slowed. General Cain dropped from the shadow and unto the floor. His eyes had rolled back and he was foaming at the mouth. He began shaking.
The Director knelt beside him. Is he having a seizure? “Get an IMMED team to my office!” An IMMED team is the IMO’s paramedic for their military medical department.
General Cain opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling of the IMO’s medical treatment facility. He had told them that he was fine but the physician insisted on keeping him under observation overnight. A tray of food was brought in and placed on a table that the nurse wheeled in front of him. He wondered how many people were fortunate enough to have a full meal like the one that he would let go to waste. He pushed the tray away. He didn’t feel like eating.
Cain was still trying to digest what had happened to him when the Director walked in.
“Good, you’re awake. How are you feeling General?” asked the Director.
“I’ll be fine.”
“What happened to you?”
Cain looked up at her and lied. “I don’t know.”
She placed her hand over his hand as a show of compassion, even though she had long since been hardened against those types of feelings. “Well, I’m glad you are going to be okay.”
She could feel the chip under his skin and raised her hand. “I’m told that you can leave tomorrow. We need to get back to our original assignment. We have a lot to accomplish while stationed at this base. We came to the east coast to verify population numbers in the IMO cities, to see what threats existed, and to get an update on air support. We seem to have gotten sidetracked.” She began to walk around the room. “I’m anxious to get back to headquarters.”
It’s not like her to make small talk. Why is she beating around the bush? Get to the point, Cain thought.
The Director faced Cain and opened her mouth like she was going to say more, but she didn’t.
“Get some rest. We will meet tomorrow in my office, zero-eight hundred hours.”
Cain nodded. His eyes followed her to the door. What are you scheming? He grabbed the lemonade from the tray. It was still a little cold. He preferred his drinks room temperature. Cain pulled back the aluminum cover and gulped it down.
Okay, what did he know? A fortress was being built, but he had no idea where. It was approximately the size of New York City. He wondered if there were several being built and if construction had already begun. Why would anyone build a fortress except for protection or to keep someone out? The IMO ruled the world so who did they need this protection from?
He had heard her say that society was being poisoned for years. Although the Director didn’t admit this was true, she also didn’t deny it. What next? She had touched him and told him to remember.
His memories had come rushing back too fast, causing the seizure. Could the IMO somehow wipe his memories and only give him the ones that were necessary for him to have? No, if they wiped them he wouldn’t be able to get them back. They blocked his memories somehow, but why? He was a trusted leader of the IMO. Why was information, past and present, being withheld from him?
The memories that came flooding in included the death of his wife, which he now knew didn’t have to happen. He pictured his wife’s face and her smile. He remembered her favorite yellow, pink and orange flowered headscarf. He had thought it was too busy, but she wore it with pride after her hair loss. He then flashed back to the sight and feel of her chest after the double mastectomy. His heart ached for her, but he had a strong sense that there was something else that he was missing.
The lights flickered. Cain squinted and pinched the area between his eyes. His head was throbbing. He opened his eyes. He thought he saw a glint of light. He sighed and closed his eyes again realizing that it was her.
“If you wanted to kill me, I would already be dead,” Cain stated.
Dawn walked towards his bed. “You remember now.”
“Why me?”
“Why not you?” She poured him a cup of water and glanced at his untouched plate. “You should eat.”
Cain didn’t want the food and wondered if he should offer it to her instead. He knew that most of those living outside of the IMO cities, because they refused to take the pledge, were starving. That’s it! It has something to do with the pledge. “Would you like—?”
“No.”
The lights flickered again. Cain squeezed between his eyes.
Dawn watched him and placed her hand on his head. He jumped, then relaxed. In an instant, the pain was gone. He felt rejuvenated. The lights flickered again. Dawn closed her eyes. The flickering bothered her.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“They are testing the emergency backup system and generators.”
“Why?”
“We are going black. The entire city.” Cain was confused. Why did I just divulge information like that?
Dawn’s question was a test. She was pleased that he hadn’t lied to her.
“All satellite signals will also be jammed,” Cain continued, realizing what the Director was up to.
Dawn looked away. “Concentrate. There is more for you to remember. I will visit you again.” She began to walk to the door.
“Wait,” Cain yelled while sitting up. “At least answer one question.”
Dawn stopped walking but kept her back to Cain. “Yes?”
“Who are you?”
“I am His servant and He appointed me the protector of the People of the Prophecy.”
“What are they—those things out there?”
Dawn had taken a step forward. She stopped and glanced back over her shoulder, “The same ones that tried to overthrow heaven.”
15
In her office, the Director sat back in her oversized chair and watched the satellite footage of what happened to her men. The footage showed those on the exterior of the building. The soldiers never knew what hit them. They had been overtaken from every direction. To say that they were outnumbered was an understatement.
“I never knew that they were so vast in number,” she thought aloud. “It’s like watching a swarm of locusts.”
She leaned forward and zoomed in on the bottom right of the screen. She could just make out a soldier in that corner. Is he communicating with them? The screen switched to another angle and he was gone.
She looked down at her desk. There was a file of medical records open, revealing Dawn’s blood work results. She glanced over it. There was nothing remarkable. She closed the file and sat back in her chair.
A voice over her earpiece: “Director?”
“Yes.”
“We have an update on the soldiers.”
“Yes, I already know they’re dead.” There must have been a shift change, and he doesn’t know that I’ve already been informed, she thought.
“Negative, Director.”
She stood up from her chair. “Continue.”
“One of the soldiers is alive. We are tracking his implant. Based on its speed, he’s in a vehicle.”
“Who is it?” the Director asked.
“Lieutenant Adams.”
She had no idea who that was. She hoped it would be Coronel Mitchum.
“Would you like a squadron dispatched-?”
“No, don’t do anything yet. Keep tracking him and keep me posted. In fact, single out that soldier’s link from the time they arrived at the building. I’m on my way.”
General Cain sat up from his hospital bed. He was drenched in sweat, and there were tears running down his face. The horror of his dream had unnerved him. An IMO police firing squad shooting at hundreds of people, and some were children. The screams were still echoing in his head. Was that real? Did it happen or was it just a dream?
A voice over the intercom: “General Cain, is everything okay? Your heart rate is increasing.
“I’m fine. Just a bad dream.”
Cain began detaching the electrodes that had been placed along his scalp to monitor his brain activity and on his left chest area to monitor his heart. He scanned the room for his clothing, dressed and rushed to the Director’s office.
The Director’s guards saluted Cain as he approached. The office door slid open, and Cain walked in, stopping just short of the seating area, realizing that he was interrupting something. The Director sat at her desk with a man wearing a white lab jacket standing over her. He pointed at something on a page of a file.
The Director waived Cain in, “General, is it zero-eight hundred already?”
“No,” Cain said as he walked over to her desk, now sprawled with files and papers.
“General Cain, Dr. Voight.”
Cain nodded toward the man. He knew of him. He was an acclaimed geneticist that hailed from Germany. He wore black-rimmed glasses and was bald on top with greying hair sticking out on the sides of this head; he resembled a mad scientist.
“So, you’re saying that she carries the virus, the very same virus that mutated into Legion X?”
“Yes, Director. That’s correct. How she is able to control the virus is a mystery.”
“Genetics?”
“Genetics is an important clue, perhaps inhibiting the virus from entering her cells. But it is not the final answer.”
16
Seth jogged down the south-end city streets and through alleyways south of what was left of the building they had escaped from just hours ago. Jade had to be heading in that direction, away from them. His days of running track in college had paid off, or maybe it was just pure adrenaline that kept him going. He slowed, glancing at an old graffiti image on the side of a building depicting IMO soldiers as the devil. Yep, that’s about right, he thought.
Three miles south of their old dwelling, he began to look for clues for Jade. In the next block, he came across a homeless woman. He had almost run past her. In this day and age just about everyone was or resembled a homeless person. Outside of the IMO cities or safe zones there were no toiletries, cosmetics, skincare or haircare products, tweezers or razors. Out here, there was no glamour; there was nothing to hide behind.
This isn’t smart, Seth thought. Why is she out in the open like this? It was safer to stay out of open areas to keep from being captured. Seth watched as she picked up something at the base of a fire hydrant at the end of the block. It glistened in her hand. He stopped in front of her, which frightened her. He recognized that she was holding one of Jade’s hoop earrings. Seth held up his hand, a sign that it was okay, and offered her the water flask attached to his belt in exchange for what she held in her hand. She accepted it with haste. Water was more of a valuable commodity than jewelry.
Seth had often warned Jade against wearing earrings in combat. During Judo lessons Jade would challenge that her jewelry was part of her style and that it made her fight better. To prove her point, she would collapse on the floor on purpose when she took her earrings off.
Seth shook his head. What a character. Everything seemed to be a joke to her, but she kept everyone smiling, no matter the situation, even when it was the last thing that we wanted to do. Despite the laughs, there was one thing that he was sure of: Jade was a warrior. It was in her blood. He felt positive that he would find her alive.
He crossed the street in front of the fire hydrant and jogged past steps that lowered to the subway, certain that Jade wouldn’t have gone down there. That would have been like committing suicide.
A few blocks down he came upon an alley and, on the ground, he saw what appeared to be Jade’s camouflage jacket. He walked toward it with his rifle drawn. He wanted to make sure that it was indeed her jacket. He didn’t remember ever seeing her dressed without some form of camouflage,whether it be her jacket, pants, tank, cap, or some other item.
Four men came from the other end of the alley and stood just beyond the jacket. They all looked like they had been in a brawl.
“Well what do we have here?” the one on the far left asked.
He was very thin with a long, mousy-brown beard. Seth noticed the reddish-purple bruise on the right side of his face as he talked. The guy held a machete and appeared drunk. Seth knew that he wasn’t. He had seen these symptoms before—a loss of coordination and uncontrollable trembling. He had Kuru, a disease of cannibals.
All, except for one, looked haggard. He was healthier than the others. He must be a defector, Seth thought. Defectors were those who pledged to the IMO but in time changed their mind. The only way out was to face death or escape. He was a recent escapee. I wonder how he got hooked up with this bunch, Seth thought as he noticed the dark red blood stain on the defector’s thigh.
He motioned to the jacket. “Where is the woman that wore this jacket?”
“Oh, she was fun.”
“Don’t worry we took really good care of her,” another chimed in.
Seth looked at the man closest to the jacket. He was still bleeding from a large gash on his forehead. Seth was sure that Jade had been the cause of that wound. In assessing the scene, he could easily work out their injuries. He knew the training that Dawn had given the women:
“Forget what you have seen in movies. You cannot overpower a man like you’ve seen on television. Proper training is necessary. Never stop moving. Usually, you will have a cardiovascular advantage over them. Use the strength in your legs. When you have multiple adversaries never keep your focus on just one. Keep an eye on all of them, being prepared to shoot one while fighting another if need be.”
Dawn made sure that they took these lessons very seriously. There were few women around after the day of awakening, so the ones that were left needed to know how to protect themselves
The Kuru’s wanted him to think that they had taken Jade, but Seth knew better. He played out the scene in his head: After being approached, one of them must have snuck up behind Jade and grabbed her. The skinny bearded one ran up on her and she kicked him in the face, butted the one behind her in the head with the back of her head and broke his nose. The defector would have tried to grab her, but instead pulled her jacket off while Jade pulled knives from her holster and stabbed him in the thigh, whipping around him and slashing the other across the face. They would have wanted to kick themselves for underestimating her, thinking that she was just some helpless woman.
The men were moving toward him.
“Hey, that’s a nice rifle there over your shoulder.” It was the extra rifle that Raymond had given him.
“I don’t want any trouble. I’m just trying to find my friend.”
Seth began to back up but didn’t see that there was a man behind him. He tripped Seth and Seth fell back. He tried to brace himself with his left arm when he fell, but when he hit the ground, his wrist cracked, and
he yelled out in pain. He wasn’t sure if his wrist was fractured or sprained. He tried to pick himself up off the ground with the arm that still held his rifle but he fell back and looked up just in time to see an axe coming down at his head.
Seth closed his eyes.
“Guy to Ray! We have incoming from Dawn!”
“On my way,” he yelled into the intercom.
Raymond had just entered his quarters in the residential building. The new arrivals were settled with room assignments and were now either resting, eating, or taking a tour of the facility. They occupied the Global Network Operations Center, the former corporate headquarters of an old cell phone company. It sat on 200 acres of land, a hidden fortress buried into the side of a hill, a perfect location. It was the “mission control” of their consortium.
Ray ran down the ramp to the central computer station. Four-foot by five-foot screens ran the length of the one-hundred-yard, arc-shaped room. Ray found Guy sitting at one of the seventy computer stations within the room.
Guy was a tech-whiz. His buddy, Yulong Zhang, sat at a computer station behind him. Yulong was equally brilliant. Together, years ago, they hacked into the IMO’s system and found secret plans to shut down the United States, long before anyone knew that the IMO had plans of taking over the world.
“What did she say?” asked Ray.
“The entire city is going black tonight!”
“We’re fifty miles outside of the city so we shouldn’t be affected, right?”
“Let’s hope not. We better check the backup systems just to be sure.”
“Did she say when?”
“No, but there will be no satellite availability either,” Yulong added.
“Wow, what the heck is the IMO up to?”
“Looks to me like they are setting a trap,” answered Guy.
“Hmmm….” Ray paced the floor while thinking to himself.
“Just in case this is happening in every major city in North America, go ahead and let those that we trade with and our other teams know. Anyone that is still in the city needs to stay put and hide.”